Ad billing system to tap into GPS

Thursday, August 9, 2007 | 01:25 PM ET

by Paul Jay, CBCNews.ca

Geek bloggers Slashdot have an interesting tidbit on Seattle-based Pelago Inc., a company that has applied for a patent to link mobile advertising sales to whether or not customers actually physically visit nearby stores.

The patent is, according to the application, for a pay-for-visit billing model for advertisements. As the application states: "The advertisement system provides advertisements to a mobile device or fixed of a user when the user is in the vicinity of or examining locations in the vicinity of the visit location. If the user subsequently visits the visit location of the advertisement by physically going to the location, the advertisement system then bills the advertiser for the advertisement."

For something like this to work, the customers' mobile device would not have to have Global Positioning System capability, the customer would also have to willingly transmit that info for ad purposes.

The company, founded by former Amazon.com executive Jeffrey Holden, is so far tight-lipped on what it's first product will be, though it says on its website that it "grows out of our obsession with the customer experience: a seamlessly integrated Web/mobile application that will be useful, social, and fun."

Comments

Art

Toronto

The fact that companies or the government or whoever else will be able to track your positioning has nothing to do with privacy. It is not mandatory for you to use the GPS service therefore you have a choice to use it or not!

Why is it when someone comes up with a useful service there is always someone (usually media) who comes up with a dumb way of criticizing it?

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